Robocop retreats to 2014 and is replaced by Elysium

Today's news is technically about two movies being pushed back, as opposed to just the one. ROBOCOP, divisively interesting as it is, has been pulled off its release date of August 9rd, 2013 and given the new date of February 7th, 2014. This means that ROBOCOP will be facing off against NEED FOR SPEED (which just picked up its lead), a showdown that will no doubt be interesting to watch. From the sidelines, that is - I don't know if I would want to be a part of either camp come that post-opening-weekend Monday morning.

Meanwhile, Neill Blomkamp's ELYSIUM has been pushed back from its release date of March 3rd, 2013 to fill the newly vacated spot left by ROBOCOP. No reason is given for either release date switch, though seeing as how we're dealing with two sci-fi tales here that have plenty of effects and marketing needs it actually isn't all that surprising. Add who knows - perhaps ELYSIUM is turning out so well that the studio wants to give it the opportunity to close out the summer. It can't be that hard to be better and/or more distinctive than TOTAL RECALL, right? I don't know, I can't remember...

And while we're here, there's one more small shift to be had in response to what seems to be a ripple effect of release date shuffling: CLOUDY 2: REVENGE OF THE LEFTOVERS has been moved away from ROBOCOP's new release date to the new date (over six months earlier) of September 27th, 2013.

So there's all that. Again, while it's damn difficult to know these things unless you're directly involved, why do you think Sony Pictures is moving ROBOCOP and ELYSIUM around like this?